TEHRAN, Oct. 21--A prominent lawmaker said Iran’s nuclear policies are made by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Head of Majlis Commission for National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi made the remark a day after the resignation of Iran’s top nuclear negotiator and secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Larijani, in an interview with IRNA on Sunday.
“The SNSC is a body that executes leader’s directives and should have enough authority to implement the leader’s policies,“ he said.
The MP reiterated that the leader has the final word on sensitive issues, especially those related to the nuclear debate.
Praising Larijani’s performance at SNSC as logical and wise, he said the top nuclear negotiator has had a significant career record.
“Larijani had offered to resign several times, with the latest dating back to a month ago,“ he said.
Larijani will accompany the new chief of the SNSC, Saeed Jalili, in his talks with the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, in Rome on Tuesday, an informed source at the SNSC said on Sunday.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters on Sunday that “Larijani’s resignation has been accepted by the president but the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear policies, approaches and objectives will not change,“ he said.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s senior advisor, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, also said, “There is no change in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear policies following the replacement of individuals.“
Secretary of State Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei said Larijani has been successful during his tenure as SNSC secretary.
“Larijani managed to foil the US conspiracy, thanks to initiatives he took in line with the leader’s guidelines,“ he said.
Rezaei added that Larijani also join a three-party committee with Solana and IAEA DirectorGeneral Mohamed ElBaradei to resolve the outstanding issues with the agency on the basis of a timetable, which constitutes a success.

Javad Vaeedi

TEHRAN, Oct. 21--A senior International Atomic Energy Agency official will visit Tehran next week to resume talks with deputy secretary of Supreme National Security Council, Javad Vaeedi.
Vaeedi and Olli Heinonen, IAEA’s deputy chief for safeguards, will focus on the issue of centrifuges P1 and P2 in their negotiations, Mehr News Agency reported.
A team of IAEA experts is presently in Tehran to prepare the grounds for holding the third round of talks.
The venue is presently Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) and negotiations will continue for the next two weeks.
“Despite the resignation of SNSC Secretary Ali Larijani and his replacement with Saeed Jalili, no change has been made to an upcoming meeting between Vaeedi and Heinonen which will take place in late October,“ he said.
The Vaeedi-Heinonen meeting will be held after the former and new secretaries of SNSC and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana will meet on Tuesday in Rome.
According to a new agreement signed between Iran and IAEA in Tehran on July 12, the IAEA provided Iran with the remaining pending questions in relation to P1 and P2 centrifuges.
The Iranian and IAEA experts held talks on the pending issues within the framework of an Iran-IAEA agreement on September 24 and 25.
After the first round of negotiations, Heinonen headed a high-ranking IAEA delegation to Iran on October 9 and discussed the pending issues with Vaeedi and other Iranian officials for three days.
“The issue of centrifuges is the second issue of the six pending issues which are aimed at resolving the ambiguities,“ he added.
IAEA has already announced that if Iran replies to IAEA’s questions no other ambiguity will remain regarding Iran’s nuclear case.
The next IAEA meeting will be held on November 22 in Vienna and IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to submit his report to IAEA on the implementation of new cooperation modalities by November 15.

Jalal Talabani

IRBIL, Iraq, Oct. 21--Iraq’s president, a Kurd, ordered Kurdish guerrillas on Sunday to lay down their arms or leave Iraq after the rebels ambushed a military unit inside Turkey, killing 12 soldiers and increasing pressure on the Turkish government to stage a cross-border incursion.
Hours after the ambush, Turkey fired about 15 artillery shells toward Kurdish villages in the border area in northern Iraq but caused no casualties, an Iraqi army officer said, AP reported.
A spokesman for the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, also said a group of rebels killed and captured a number of Turkish forces during clashes about 70 kilometers (44 miles) inside Turkish territory.
“The PKK fighters were in a defensive position when they killed and injured a number of Turkish soldiers and captured another number,“ the spokesman, Abdul-Rahman Al-Chadarchi, said without giving more details.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to stop their attacks amid fears a Turkish incursion would destabilize the relatively peaceful autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
“We have appealed to the PKK to desist fighting and to transform themselves from military organizations into civilian and political ones,“ Talabani said. “But if they (the PKK) insist on the continuation of fighting, they should leave Kurdistan, Iraq, and not create problems here.“
Talabani’s call on the PKK rebels to lay down their arms or get out of Iraq is the strongest indication to date of his exacerbation with the rebels’ actions and his wish to distance himself, as well as Iraq’s Kurds, from the rebels.
Talabani was speaking at a joint news conference with Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq’s Kurdish region, in the city of Irbil, 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Baghdad.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government was ready to order a cross-border strike against PKK bases in northern Iraq, and called high-level talks to decide Ankara’s response to the attack.
“We will make a decision at the end of our discussions on what sort of a step we will take,“ Erdogan said, saying that top ministers and military leaders would attend Sunday’s meeting to be chaired by President Abdullah Gul.
“With respect to the cross-border operation, we will take all necessary steps within the framework of the authorization,“ he added.
While he again indicated that there would be no rush to carry out an incursion, the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad passed a motion condemning Turkey’s threat to stage a raid in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
The United States is also wary of any action that could destabilize relatively peaceful northern Iraq.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was due to hold talks later Sunday with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul in Ukraine on the first day of a European visit.

TEHRAN, Oct. 21--Welfare and Social Security Minister Abdolreza Mesri said on Sunday the number of people living below the absolute poverty line has increased by 7.5 percent.
Speaking in a press conference held at the ministry, Mesri said the poverty line depends on people’s impression and is not an absolute concept, ISNA reported.
“At one time, they announced the poverty line without saying anything about the relationship between the salaries of workers and employees,“ he said.
The minister noted that all economic indexes and statistics should be taken into consideration while evaluating the poverty line.
The minister said 1.94 million people were below the severe poverty line in 2005, which decreased to 691,000 in 2006.
Mesri also said about six million people covered by the social security insurance have been introduced to receive Justice Shares.
He noted that covert and overt subsidies have not been targeted and his ministry has managed to direct only 30 percent of the subsidized commodities to the needy.
“For example, about 2.7 trillion rials are allocated for subsidized milk and 1.3 trillion rials for subsidized milk distributed throughout schools,“ he said.
Mesri opined that 40 trillion rials of subsidies have been saved due to a reduction in gasoline consumption.

TEHRAN, Oct. 21--Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Sunday if the budget is allocated for Tehran Urban and Suburban Railway Company, 75 km of railroad will be built within next five years.
Speaking on the sidelines of an open Majlis session on Sunday, Qalibaf described a new Majlis approval according to which 30 percent of Tehran’s public budget will be allocated to the construction of Tehran’s Metro as very important, IRNA reported.
“I requested the lawmakers to change the budget distribution of public transportation so that a total of 30 percent is allocated for Tehran’s railroad system and lawmakers approved the same,“ he said.
Qalibaf expressed hope that the Majlis approval and completion of the bill on development of public transportation, as well as proper fuel management will help improve the public transportation system, especially Metro.
Commenting on the impact of the Majlis approval on reducing Tehran’s traffic load, the mayor opined that according to studies conducted in metropolitan cities, the Metro will account for at least 40 percent and at most 82 percent of public transportation.
“Each metro carriage transfers 20,000 passengers everyday while each bus transfers only 600 passengers everyday,“ he said.
Qalibaf rejected any differences between the government and Tehran Municipality.

BEIRUT, Lebanon,
Oct. 21--The administration of US President George W. Bush wants the Lebanese to choose between having their country turn into an American military base or face a new strife, Lebanon’s top Shiite Muslim cleric alleged on Sunday.
The allegation by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah came three days after a senior Pentagon official said the US military would like to see a “strategic partnership“ with Lebanon’s Army to strengthen the country’s forces so that the militant Hezbollah group would have no excuse to bear arms.
“We warn that the US administration is offering the Lebanese a choice either to accept their country being turned into a (US) military, security and political base, or to expect a new strife,“ Fadlallah said in a statement faxed to AP.
Eric Edelman, US undersecretary of defense for policy, spoke about a “strategic partnership“ with Lebanon’s Army in an interview aired on Lebanese television on Thursday, two days after he held talks in Beirut on military cooperation with Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and other officials.
Edelman did not say that the US government wants to build a military base in Lebanon.
Fadlallah, the top religious authority for Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shiites, said the Lebanese Army was aware of attempts to link US military aid to Lebanon to confronting the guerrilla group and was determined in “rejecting strife and rejecting any restrictions on its armament“.
Since last year’s war between the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and Israel, the United States has sharply increased its military assistance to Lebanon to $270 million in 2007--more than five times the amount provided a year ago--in a show of support to Siniora’s government.
Fadlallah was skeptical about US military aid to the Lebanese Army.
“The Lebanese, who have seen the American failure in Iraq and felt the American involvement with Israel in last year’s war against Lebanon...must be aware that what the administration of President Bush is aiming at is something else other than supporting the Lebanese army,“ Fadlallah said.
“It (US Administration) is working to make Lebanon a new base for chaos and another position for NATO in order to exert pressure on regional and international powers which disobeyed its decisions and policies,“ the cleric added in a clear reference to Iran and Syria.
Also Sunday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, warned that the establishment of a US military base would amount to “a hostile act“ against Lebanon.
Hezbollah also has denounced Edelman’s call for a US “strategic partnership“ with Lebanon’s Army, saying American attempts to boost military ties were a ploy for domination and could turn the country into another Iraq.
Some in Lebanon have expressed fears that a foreign military presence could attract Al-Qaeda and other militants, as has happened in Iraq.

BEIJING, Oct. 21--President Hu Jintao boosted his political clout on Sunday, getting China’s Communist Party elite to endorse a signature policy program and approving the retirement of a powerful rival.
How deftly Hu maneuvered eight days of high-level parleys will become clearer on Monday when the party inaugurates a new leadership lineup with Hu in charge for a second five-year term, AP reported.
Hu has marshaled his political capital to try to promote a protŽgŽ and potential successor but political analysts said he has had to strike compromises to do so.
Sunday’s announcement that Vice President Zeng Qinghong, a skilled inside operator, is stepping down from the leadership likely upped the ante, perhaps forcing Hu to reserve leadership spots for rivals and constraining his decision-making.
“Hu has made clear that he is in charge of a more rule-bound system, although he still has to share power,“ said Ding Xueliang, a political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beijing.
Hu’s ability to enforce unity will determine how the new leadership manages China’s emergence as a world power without antagonizing the US and other global powers and copes with a yawning rich-poor gap and a populace demanding more responsive government.
The conclusion of the weeklong party congress on Sunday and Monday’s announcement of a new leadership lineup mark the end of months of often divisive inhouse bargaining over high-level posts that saw Hu purge Shanghai’s party chief.
At the congress, the more than 2,200 delegates--national and provincial political and military eliteŅendorsed amending the party’s charter to include Hu’s pet policy program, the “scientific outlook on development“. The program attempts to channel growth to better benefit rural areas, low-wage workers and migrants left out of the economic boom of recent years.
Delegates also appointed members to the party’s internal anti-corruption agency and approved a new Central Committee, the body that will appoint the ruling Politburo and from which Zeng and others stepped down.